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Obama promotes homosexuals in military in State of the Union Address: steers clear of abortion

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – President Barack Obama did not clearly address the issue of abortion in last night's State of the Union Address, usually a time to unveil specific policy proposals before the nation. However, in an address that focused mostly on economics, he made several references to homosexuals, including those serving in the military.

In the most impassioned rhetoric of the night, he said, “What I've said matters little if we don't come together to protect our most precious resource, our children.” His topic, however, was not about abortion but gun control, his proffered solution to mass shooting victims, whom he cited in rising cadences.

The president may have made an oblique reference to his commitment to expand contraceptive use and its abortion backup during his discussion of the Third World.

To promote “progress in the most impoverished parts of our world,” he promised, “the United States will join with our allies to eradicate such extreme poverty in the next two decades: by connecting more people to the global economy and empowering women.”

“It’s striking that the president did not mention the Life issue tonight, despite the long catalogue of other issues he did choose to address,” said Americans United for Life President Dr. Charmaine Yoest. “The president helped create a health care law that intertwines abortion and funding for life-ending drugs and devices throughout.”

“It is irresponsible of the president to insist that Americans pay for life-ending drugs and devices as well as for a medical procedure without also requiring a full reporting of the consequences of such a choice,” she added. Currently, all abortion reporting is voluntary, and some states such as California refuse to provide any statistics. The president's “nonchalance about deaths and complications from a procedure performed routinely on American women is unconscionable,” Dr. Yoest said.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the president may have chosen to omit abortion from the State of the Union because he is out of the mainstream of American opinion on abortion. “Will President Obama side with the 87 percent of Americans who believe healthcare professionals should be protected from having to participate in procedures they find morally objectionable? Will he agree with the 72 percent of Americans who object to taxpayer funding of abortion? Can he find common ground with the 63 percent of Americans, including 70 percent of women, who support a ban on abortion past the point at which an unborn child can feel pain?” she asked.

Citing recent polls, she wrote, “Whether or not they identify themselves as ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice,’ Americans oppose more abortions than they support, whereas President Obama has yet to identify one instance where he would protect the life of the unborn child. Last year, he even refused to support a ban on sex-selective abortion – lethal sex-discrimination – even though such legislation is supported by 77 percent of Americans and a whopping 80 percent of women.”

At a chamber before all branches of the United States government – except Supreme Court justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito – President Obama instead focused on the more poll-friendly issue of homosexuality.

Early on he said it was his administration's “unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country,” including championing people regardless of “who you love.”

“We will ensure equal treatment for all service members, and equal benefits for their families – gay and straight,” he said. The president dropped the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy instituted by President Bill Clinton and allowed homosexuals to serve openly in the military, something experts worry will harm group cohesion.

“We will draw upon the courage and skills of our sisters and daughters, because women have proven under fire that they are ready for combat,” he added.

In a segment of his hour-long address that garnered largely positive reviews among social conservatives, President Obama promised to “strengthen families by removing the financial deterrents to marriage for low-income couples, and doing more to encourage fatherhood.

He added, “What makes you a man isn’t the ability to conceive a child; it’s having the courage to raise one.” Many believe the president's often curt references to fatherlessness stem from his own upbringing, which he wrote in his autobiography was “shaped more by” his father's “absence than by his presence.”

Earlier in the day, the Family Research Council unveiled two new reports showing the importance of “family intactness” on social policies, such as child poverty, welfare dependence, educational attainment, and out-of-wedlock births.

Out-of-wedlock births, she wrote, are “creating a two-caste society with marriage and education as the divide. Lower-income Americans and, increasingly more so, those in “middle America” are having children outside of marriage, putting themselves and their children at risk for poverty.”

President Obama did not specify how he intended to strengthen families.

Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox, an expert on the family at the University of Virginia, speculated he could determine which welfare programs make the poor less likely to get married, or simply issue “low-income couples a check equal to the penalty they incur from marrying.”

However, at least one leader at the Family Research Center saw the president's stance as irreconcilable.

“He calls for fatherhood as a moral imperative, but wants to redefine marriage,” said Rob Schwarzwalder, senior vice president of FRC.

The president may also be at odds with himself in his plan to expand preschool programs, such as Head Start, which take children out of the home and place them in the care of others.

Barack Obama pressed the issue of amnesty for illegal aliens, as well as alternative energy, and rebuilding infrastructure in the economic portion of his speech.

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Disney ABC embraces X-rated anti-Christian bigot Dan Savage in new prime time show

March 30, 2015 (NewsBusters.org) -- Media Research Center (MRC) and Family Research Council (FRC) are launching a joint national campaign to educate the public about a Disney ABC sitcom pilot based on the life of bigoted activist Dan Savage. MRC and FRC contacted Ben Sherwood, president of Disney/ABC Television Group, more than two weeks ago urging him to put a stop to this atrocity but received no response. [Read the full letter]

A perusal of Dan Savage’s work reveals a career built on advocating violence — even murder — and spewing hatred against people of faith. Savage has spared no one with whom he disagrees from his vitriolic hate speech. Despite his extremism, vulgarity, and unabashed encouragement of dangerous sexual practices, Disney ABC is moving forward with this show, disgustingly titled “Family of the Year.”

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell reacts:

“Disney ABC’s decision to effectively advance Dan Savage’s calls for violence against conservatives and his extremist attacks against people of faith, particularly evangelicals and Catholics, is appalling and outrageous. If hate speech were a crime, this man would be charged with a felony. Disney ABC giving Dan Savage a platform for his anti-religious bigotry is mind-boggling and their silence is deafening.

“By creating a pilot based on the life of this hatemonger and bringing him on as a producer, Disney ABC is sending a signal that they endorse Dan Savage’s wish that a man be murdered. He has stated, ‘Carl Romanelli should be dragged behind a pickup truck until there’s nothing left but the rope.’ ABC knows this. We told them explicitly.

“If the production of ‘Family of the Year’ is allowed to continue, not just Christians but all people of goodwill can only surmise that the company Walt Disney created is endorsing violence.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins reacts:

“Does ABC really want to produce a pilot show based on a vile bully like Dan Savage? Do Dan Savage’s over-the top-obscenity, intimidation of teenagers and even violent rhetoric reflect the values of Disney? Partnering with Dan Savage and endorsing his x-rated message will be abandoning the wholesome values that have attracted millions of families to Walt Disney.”

Dan Savage has made numerous comments about conservatives, evangelicals, and Catholics that offend basic standards of decency. They include:

Proclaiming that he sometimes thinks about “f****ing the shit out of” Senator Rick Santorum

Calling for Christians at a high school conference to “ignore the bull**** in the Bible”

Saying that “the only thing that stands between my d*** and Brad Pitt’s mouth is a piece of paper” when expressing his feelings on Pope Benedict’s opposition to gay marriage

Promoting marital infidelity

Saying “Carl Romanelli should be dragged behind a pickup truck until there’s nothing left but the rope.”

Telling Bill Maher that he wished Republicans “were all f***ing dead”

Telling Dr. Ben Carson to “suck my d***. Name the time and place and I’ll bring my d*** and a camera crew and you can s*** me off and win the argument.”

Many would be surprised to learn that Texas law allows physicians to forcibly remove a feeding tube against the will of the patient and their family. In fact, there is a greater legal penalty for failing to feed or water an animal than for a hospital to deny a human being food and water through a tube.

This is because there is no penalty whatsoever for a healthcare provider who wishes to deny artificially-administered nutrition and hydration (AANH). According to Texas Health and Safety Code, “every living dumb creature” is legally entitled access to suitable food and water.

Denying an animal food and water, like in this January case in San Antonio, is punishable by civil fines up to $10,000 and criminal penalties up to two years in jail per offense. Yet Texas law allows health care providers to forcibly deny food and water from human beings – what they would not be able to legally do to their housecat. And healthcare providers are immune from civil and criminal penalties for denial of food and water to human beings as long as they follow the current statutory process which is sorely lacking in safeguards.

Therefore, while it is surprising that Texas has the only state law that explicitly mentions food and water delivered artificially for the purpose of completely permitting its forced denial (the other six states mention AANH explicitly for the opposite purpose, to limit or prohibit its refusal), it is not at all surprising that the issue of protecting a patient’s right to food and water is perhaps the one point of consensus across all major stakeholders.

H.B. 3074 is the first TADA reform bill to include only this provision that is agreed upon across all major players in previous legislative sessions.

There are irreconcilable ideological differences between two major right-to-life organizations that should supposedly be like-minded: Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life. Each faction (along with their respective allies) have previously sponsored broad and ambitious bills to either preserve but reform the current law (Texas Alliance for Life’s position) or overturn it altogether as Texas Right to Life aims to do.

Prior to H.B. 3074, bills filed by major advocacy organizations have often included AANH, but also a host of other provisions that were so contentious and unacceptable to other organizations that each bill ultimately died, and this mutually-agreed-upon and vital reform always died along with it.

2011 & 2013 Legislative Sessions present prime example

This 2011 media report shows the clear consensus on need for legislation to simply address the need to protect patients’ rights to food and water:

“Hughes [bill sponsor for Texas Right to Life] has widespread support for one of his bill’s goals: making food and water a necessary part of treatment and not something that can be discontinued, unless providing it would harm the patient.”

Nonetheless, in 2013, both organizations and their allies filed complicated, contentious opposing bills, both of which would have protected a patient’s right to food and water but each bill also included provisions the rival group saw as contrary to their goals. Both bills were ultimately defeated and neither group was able to achieve protections for patients at risk of forced starvation and dehydration – a mutual goal that could have been met through a third, narrow bill like H.B. 3074.

H.B. 3074 finally focuses on what unites the organizations involved rather than what divides them, since these differences have resulted in a 12 year standoff with no progress whatsoever.

H.B. 3074 is progress that is pre-negotiated and pre-approved.

It is not a fertile springboard for negotiations on an area of mutual agreement. Rather it is the culmination of years of previous negotiations on bills that all came too late, either due to the complexnature of rival bills, the controversy involved, or even both.

On the contrary, H.B. 3074 is not just simply an area of agreement; moreover, it is has already been negotiated. It should not be stymied by disagreements on language, since Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life (along with their allies) were able to agree on language in 2007 with C.S.S.B. 439. C.S.S.B. 439 reads that, unlike the status quo that places no legal conditions on when food and water may be withdrawn, it would be permitted for those in a terminal condition if,

“reasonable medical evidence indicates the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration may hasten the patient’s death or seriously exacerbate other major medical problems and the risk of serious medical pain or discomfort that cannot be alleviated based on reasonable medical judgment outweighs the benefit of continued artificial nutrition and hydration.”

This language is strikingly similar to H.B. 3074 which states, “except that artificially administered nutrition and hydration must be provided unless, based on reasonable medical judgment, providingartificially administered nutrition and hydration would:

Hasten the patient’s death;

Seriously exacerbate other major medical problems not outweighed by the benefit of the provision of the treatment;

Result in substantial irremediable physical pain, suffering, or discomfort not outweighed by the benefit of the provision of the treatment;

Be medically ineffective; or

Be contrary to the patient’s clearly stated desire not to receive artificially administered nutrition or hydration.”

Texas Right to Life would support the language in H.B. 3074 that already has Texas Alliance for Life’s endorsement. Any reconciliation on the minor differences in language would therefore be minimal and could be made by either side, but ultimately, both sides and their allies would gain a huge victory – the first victory in 12 years on this vital issue.

It seems that the Texas Advance Directive Act, even among its sympathizers, has something for everyone to oppose.

The passage of H.B. 3074 and the legal restoration of rights to feeding tubes for Texas patients will not begin to satisfy critics of the Texas Advance Directives Act who desire much greater changes to the law and will assuredly continue to pursue them. H.B. 3074 in no way marks the end for healthcare reform, but perhaps a shift from the belief that anything short of sweeping changes is an endorsement of the status quo.

Rather, we can look at H.B. 3074 as breaking a barrier and indicating larger changes are possible.

And if nothing else, by passing H.B. 3074 introduced by State Rep. Drew Springer, we afford human beings in Texas the same legal access to food and water that we give to our horses. What is cruel to do to an animal remains legal to do to humans in Texas if organizations continue to insist on the whole of their agenda rather than agreeing to smaller bills like H.B. 3074.

The question is, can twelve years of bad blood and bickering be set aside for even this most noble of causes?

Only 3 Days Left!

I can’t believe how quickly our annual Spring campaign has flown by. Now,with only 3 days remaining, we still have $96,000 left to raise to meet our absolute minimum goal.

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For 17 years, we have relied almost exclusively on the donations of our growing army of everyday readers like you: readers who are tired of the anti-life and anti-family bias of the mainstream media, and who are looking for a different kind of news agency.

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